What are the Answers: Country of Origin Labeling

Statement

Q: What is Country of Origin Labeling?

A: As a family farmer, I take pride in the fact that the crops we harvest in the heartland make it to dinner tables around the world. A lot of people want to know where the food on their tables comes from. Congress responded to this sentiment five years ago when it passed the Country of Origin Labeling Act -- or COOL -- as part of the 2002 farm bill. I sponsored this legislation, and it mandated that meat and produce products include labeling that identifies their country of origin. This information is already on many consumer goods. Unfortunately, making the law on meat and produce labeling a reality at the grocery store has proven to be a long and difficult process. The United States Department of Agricultures has yet to establish a workable, common sense COOL rule. In the course of the last five years, the Department relied on industry-provided information rather than independent sources of information when making its estimates about the cost of the program. This resulted in gross over-estimates. Things got worse when the congressional committees responsible for funding agricultural programs failed to fund this one.

Q: What is Congress doing to give consumers more information?

A: The double whammy of the Department of Agriculture over-estimating program costs and Congress not funding COOL means that Congress needs to take action again to require that food products be labeled with the country of origin. The House of Representatives recently passed COOL legislation. It's not perfect, but it takes big steps in the right direction. Now it's time for the Senate to do its part. In September, I wrote a letter urging Sen. Harkin to include the House-passed legislation in the farm bill he's putting together as Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. The new proposal addresses the problems that the Department of Agriculture created among various stakeholders -- producers, packers and retailers -- which effectively stalled the whole process. The new legislation would establish three options for labeling meat and would allow ground meat to be labeled with a list of countries without requiring the percentages of meat product from each of those countries. Packers and retailers would be allowed to use existing documents to verify the origin, such as animal health papers and import customs documents. This approach should pave the way for prompt implementation of country of origin labeling and provide consumers with the kind of information they want and the kind of information that can help build confidence in the safety of their meat.

Source